Veggies in pots

All sorts - I am growing peas, beans, rocket, strawberries, garlic, herbs, carrots, spring onions this year as an example.

There's a thread with loads of good suggestions and advice on this too:

http://www.growfruitandveg.co.uk/gra...read_5662.html

Main thing I find with containers is just to make sure you keep them well fed and watered. Seem to work fine for most veggies.

I am attempting onions in shallow planters and also bought some salad seed mats which fit a 20cm pot from Mr Fothergill the other day which have different varities distributed over the mat which I'm hoping will do well.

My tomatoes are grown in gro bags although I did add Gro Pots last year which definately improved the yield and ease of watering them.

I do have a strawberry pot but find they don't do very well in it. The best strawberries I have had are in window boxes which have an inbuilt water reservoir - they did really well last year.

As long as you can keep them watered then most things are worth a try (brassicas may not like pots/troughs). Potatoes needs lots of water in the bags - I thought I'd drenched them but when I harvested them they were dry from halfway down. This year I have incorporated a drain pipe driled with holes and filled with gravel in the middle to try and get water all the way down the bags.

Seeds don't cost too much - especially if you swap ones with friends and I think it's fun to have a go.

Runner beans & french beans do well in largish pots. Try a mix of green, purple and yellow french beans for pretty as well as tasty. I have also grown runner beans in growbags placed on their sides and holes made on the top to give a deeper rootrun.

You can grow things in hanging baskets too, if you're short of room - tumbling tomatoes do well, but again, keep the baskets well fed & watered.


That's a great idea! Maybe dwarf barlottis too, the pods go red in time.

We tried strawberries in a planter when we lived in Bath without any luck, they seem to dry out too quickly, was going to try potato in a dustbin and peas & mange tout in large pots along with toms planted on their own in large pots, my mum had good success with toms in pots last year, looking at the other threads there is lots more that I can try as well.

Am going to do lots of herbs as well as hubbie loves cooking with fresh herbs.

What can't you Depending on the size/shape of the pots you can grow almost everything.

You need to make sure the pots are big enough and consistently watered.

A while back I got a book about container gardening from the local library - I'm pretty sure it had a fair bit about growing food in them.

One thing to consider to save floor space would be growing up a wall - not climbing but pots on the wall. One method I saw involved fastening a load of wire mesh (chain link fencing I think) to a wall and then wiring pots to that and growing all the way up the wall.

You can grow tomatoes hanging down from a hanging basket or bucket fastened up on a wall. I'm pretty some other things will grow hanging down like that too.

I've pulled up a few handy links for you...
Growing with a window and keeping the cill clear:
Herb planter box for the kitchen -- easy install
If I was making this I'd modify the wall wedges so they had lips to ensure the planter couldn't move forwards or backwards and fall.

Here's one way of automatically watering a series of upside-down tomato planters.
Upside-Down Hanging Self-Watering Earth-Filled Box!
The related instructables on the right should give plenty of info on the very basics of upside down growing.
This one uses hanging baskets rather than the more usual buckets.
how to plant hanging upsidedown tomatoes

There are plenty of tiered options too, from a "ladder allotment" like this:
The Organic Gardening Catalogue (note also the freestanding ones of 3, 4 or 5 shelves)
That should be easy enough to make if you're a bit handy with a saw.

Personally I'd make it a bit differently with a series of lips/rails in place to stop the pots falling off the shelves if the wind picks up a bit.

Also something like this could work...
Make a wooden planter for plants | How to | Projects | BBC Gardeners' World
Looks great and would fit really well into a corner. Use that as a starting point and you could come up with a multi tiered setup that went a good way up a wall and out onto the floor.

Just bear in mind that anything going up a wall should avoid covering air bricks and/or giving mice a way to climb up to the air bricks (one of the main ways they get into houses, I believe).

All the best.

i too have a tiny garden so use pots to grow lots of things. this year im growing tomatoes, potatoes, chillis, aubergine, courgette, strawberrys, carrots, salad leaves
and i always have a pot full of herbs!

you could also buy a few cheap mini greenhouses - and either use with or without the cover. As we have a greenhouse now, plan to grow herbs and salad stuff in them. Take up less room, and more of an effort for slugs to get too - unless of course the bird drops them on the way past!

I'm having a go at Tumbling Tomatoes this year. They have germinated well but I don't know how many plants per basket. I'm also planting trailing viola in baskets but again not sure how many plants to each basket.

Can anyone advise please.

Thanks.

I would do one tom per basket and part bury a upsidedown plastic bottle (bottom cut off) for easy watering. They grow quite big and are very thirsty.

Much appreciated, thanks for that.

Tumbling Tom tomatoes, chillies, strawberries, parsnips (small but delicious), carrots, peas and various herbs - thyme, parsley, sage etc. These are all veg I've grown in pots to good results.

I find a big advantage of containers is that they are 'contained' - the area to be taken care of is manageable.

Good luck with this year's gardening.